Thanks for joining us for this summer video blog series! In this video I cover the following: What are sight words? How do you know which sight words to teach? How do you teach sight words? How do you help students who are struggling to learn sight words? Recommended posts, resources and materials: Sight word lists – from This Reading Mama Magnetic letters Sightwords.com – enter your words, and…

Want to know how to teach synthesizing? This lesson is easy … and it works! This post contains affiliate links. Have you been following along with the reading comprehension series that I’m doing with This Reading Mama? Each week, we show you how to teach a reading comprehension strategy with a particular picture book. Here’s what we’ve shared so far! Setting a purpose for readingwith Surprising Sharks Teaching kids to activate…

Looking for a fun way to teach the strategy of determining importance? Let’s dive in! This post contains affiliate links. Have you been following along with the collaborative blog series I’m doing with Becky Spence of This Reading Mama? Each week, we’ve shown you how to teach a specific reading comprehension strategy with picture books. Today I’m tackling one of the tougher ones … determining importance. If you ask a…

Today’s post will show you how to teach visualizing with picture books! This post contains affiliate links. Today I’m sharing another way to teach comprehension strategies with picture books. It’s part of the collaborative blog series that I’m doing with This Reading Mama. Up next? Visualizing! Visualizing is the ability to hear (or read) a story and have a mental image of the text. I grabbed a copy of the…

Grab these free games for ending blends! Have you seen my Roll-a-games? I’ve shared a ton of these no-prep games that are great for helping kids hear and identify sounds in words. You can download any of these sets for free: Roll a short vowel Roll a long vowel Roll a rhyme Roll a blend Roll a digraph Roll an ending sound Recently a reader requested a set of Roll-a-games for…

In today’s post I’m sharing a lesson and free printable that will show you how to teach predicting with picture books. This post contains affiliate links. Have you been following along with the blog series I’m doing with This Reading Mama? We’re sharing specific ways to teach reading comprehension strategies with picture books. Today I’m sharing a lesson about predicting. How to teach predicting with picture books Step 1 Choose a…

Looking for another simple printable to build early reading and writing skills? Download this free activity – write the room with digraphs! I’ve been doing “write the room” activities with my kindergartner for a few months. But now that his reading skills have suddenly (and vastly) improved, he no longer finds these challenging. In fact, when we did my write the room for short u activity, he complained that it…

Today I’ll demonstrate how to use a picture book to teach the comprehension skill of activating prior knowledge. This post contains affiliate links. This Reading Mama and I are sharing a collaborative blog series all about teaching reading strategies with picture books. Whether you’re doing a whole class read aloud, a small group guided reading lesson, or a reading conference one-on-one, you can use picture books to improve comprehension. Last…

Many of you have been asking for my final short vowel “write the room” printable. Here (at long last!) is the set for short u words. Just in case you’re new to “write the room,” here’s how it works. Print small cards with the featured words and post them around your classroom or home. Give your learner(s) a recording sheet to record each word as it is found. Pretty simple!…

Are you looking to amp up your vocabulary instruction for your K-2 learners? You’re in the right spot! This post contains affiliate links. I don’t know about you, but I sure get a headache when someone tells me that there’s one more thing to jam into an already-packed school day. So I apologize in advance, because … guess what? Today I want to talk to you about something that you need…